


All Fall Asleep

by Gyptian



Series: Stark in Roswell [1]
Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Roswell New Mexico (TV 2019)
Genre: Alex Manes Loves Michael Guerin, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, Canon Bisexual Character, Canon Divergence - Pre-Iron Man 1, Canon Divergence - Thanos Never Happened, Canon Gay Character, F/F, Female Bucky Barnes, Female Tony Stark, Genderfluid Character, Jesse Manes is a War Crime, M/M, Male-Female Friendship, Post-Episode: s01e13 Recovering the Satellites, Secret Identity, Tony Stark Has A Heart
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-05
Updated: 2020-07-05
Packaged: 2021-03-04 23:02:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,771
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25084345
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gyptian/pseuds/Gyptian
Summary: Stark, alone after most of the Avengers took off, receives an alert of a suspected HYDRA facility in Roswell, New Mexico, and solicits the help of Captain Alex Manes. When Steve Rogers and Bucky Barnes hear of HYDRA rearing its head, they return to the state to shut it down.Takes place in an alternate timeline to the Marvel Cinematic Universe and after Roswell, season 1, though no knowledge of either should be required to enjoy this story. Stands alone.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes & Steve Rogers, James "Bucky" Barnes/Tony Stark, Michael Guerin/Alex Manes
Series: Stark in Roswell [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1816672
Comments: 2
Kudos: 13
Collections: Iron Man Big Bang 2019/2020





	All Fall Asleep

**Author's Note:**

> For Iron Man Big Bang 2019. 
> 
> My deepest thanks to [nashapixie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/nashapixie) for the wonderful illustrations, to which much of the inspiration of this work is owed.

[ ](https://ibb.co/g6WgVxy)

The nightmare started, as it always did, with blurry warnings of critical system failures flickering in front of Iron Man's eyes.

An angry metal screech. A berserk Captain America ripped his faceplate off. “-me who you are, you coward!” The suit's on-board AI blared blurrily in his ears, Friday was out of reach.

The Arc reactor was compromised, the suit would soon shut down.

Iron Man closed his eyes, resigned.

A dull clatter. The faceplate was dropped on the floor like so much scrap metal.

“Stark?” squeaked the blonde giant kneeling on his chest. His patriotic shield still hovered like Damocles' sword over Iron Man's glowing heart, ready to finish the job. It had already cut deep into his metal heart.

Heavy footsteps as the leather-clad wall of mindless muscle that had murdered Stark's parents approached and came into view. Beneath the buzz-cut, stormy eyes weren't quite as dull as they had been, in the gaunt face. “That's a woman. In the shell of a man,” the Winter Soldier observed.

“Yeah, he's,” Captain America choked, “ _she's_ my friend. Stark. Iron Man is piloted by _Stark._ I never...”

The silence that followed was as cold as the Siberian winter. Iron Man stared at the ceiling, stoic, waiting for the two super-soldiers to decide his fate.

“Stark. Any relation to Howard?” asked Winter Soldier matter-of-fact. “Makes a lot more sense, then, the punching. I'd want to beat me up.”

“His daughter. Stark...” Captain America stared down now, sincerity making his face shine like a blue-eyed winter sun, without any true warmth to spare. “Stark. I didn't know, I'm sorry. I'd _never-”_

“-hit a woman?” Iron Man asked bitterly.

“Punch a _friend,”_ Captain America corrected.

Iron Man snorted. “Some friend you are. You endangered all of us for the sake of your old war buddy, _my parents' murderer_. Your new sidekick is in jail.” He croaked, coughed, continued in a cracked, high voice. “Ross is after my ass. You left half the world in the lurch because you decided the Avengers didn't need any sort of accountability-”

“Stark!” the Captain shouted in his face. “I'm sorry. I didn't mean-”

“-to kill me? Well, you did it anyway. Congratulations. Get out of here if you want to live, before Ross's lynch mob finds you.”

“What?” he paled, staggering to his feet. The removal of a few hundred should not have mattered, the rigid metal of the suit being what it is. Iron Man breathed more easily anyway, weight off his chest.

“Reactor's kaput. Meaning I'm probably kaput.” Another cough that sent pain galoping up and down his spine. “Friday won't be able to send any sort of help with a replacement reactor in time.” He took petty delight at the shock in the faces of his opponents. Well, seems they'd at least feel some regret over killing him.

His eyes blurred, now, as they usually did, because he'd started to lose consciousness at this point in the memory.

Winter Soldier had kneeled by his head, face floating above him, upside down. Clear eyes had stared into his own, fingers stroking his cheek lightly. “Woman inside the shell of a man.” A thoughtful murmur, nearly a benediction. Iron Man didn't know what was so remarkable about that fact, the people who knew mostly ignored it, but he didn't mind dying to a bit of misplaced tenderness.

That tableau had held for a dreamy eternity.

Until seconds or an eternity later, two callused fingers gently close his eyelids. Odd, to find kindness in the hands that had strangled his mother.

Deeper into the grey, Captain America's voice had sounded again, but Iron Man had been too far gone to hear the words. A clatter, the shield dropping next to his dying body, his dreaming mind knew.

Iron Man died in Siberia, as he did every night since his heart had stopped in that cold wasteland, minutes before Vision had shown up to revive him.

*~*

Stark gasped awake, as she did every morning.

For a few confused moments she hung suspended in the oblivion between life and death, masculine and feminine.

Friday's Irish accent soothed her panic with a litany of the mundane tasks for the day, the news, the weather. She shook off sweat-soaked sheets and stumbled into the shower.

When she was settled at the breakfast bar on the middle of seven stools, in the Avengers' compound central kitchen, did she allow herself to ask, “Where are they today, girl? The Avengers.”

“No reported and confirmed sightings of Falcon, Hawkeye or Black Widow since last month. Reports still put Scarlet Witch in South India, moving north,” said Friday.

“Wonder if she'll take Doctor Strange up on his offer,” Stark mused.

“Unknown. Nomad and White Wolf are confirmed to be in Libya. They repaired a catastrophic leak on an oil pipeline. They seem to be making their way to Tripoli.”

“Hm,” said Stark, as she munched on tasteless oatmeal. She tried not to let the echoing silence of the lounge behind her press in too much.

She took bigger bites, chewed less. Time to get moving, anyway.

“Mkay, Fri, what's on the agenda for today? Lab, office, field trip?” She rinsed the cup and grabbed a meal bar to munch on while she moved to the ground floor. “Do I have time to go for a drive?”

“An alert came in yesterday from a site that was on file as a potential warehouse for rejected Stark Industries weapons Obadiah Stane sold,” Friday began, her voice following Stark down the hallway to the garage. “It was initially dismissed since SHIELD had been active in the area and shut down the project that included the warehouse in 2008, weeks after Iron Man defeated Stane. We suspected that had any weapons been present, they would have been transferred to a SHIELD facility.”

“But?” asked Stark, plucking at her two-day-old tank top. Probably needed a change if she was going to show her face outside the compound. She made an about-face to her room.

Friday listed a whole decade of not-much-to-go-on, and then said, “An explosion was set off yesterday that was large enough to register on one of our Argus Eye satellites. It seems some type of explosives were still present on-site. Analysis of the explosion points towards Electra Bombs.”

“Wow, those old things, huh?” Stark asked, voice muffled by fabric as she changed. “Think I can take the car to check it out? Make a road trip of it?”

“No, boss,” said Friday, evenly. “If SHIELD ostensibly shut the project down, but it wasn't, then HYDRA involvement is likely. This is an Avengers mission.”

Stark snorted. “The Avengers have disappeared.”

“Not all, boss. Iron Man remains.”

Stark dropped her head against the cold, unforgiving surface of the mirror. “Fuck.” She let the shirt drop, walked to part of the closet where her undersuits hung, which she'd locked up, not quite ready to throw them away but hoping she'd never have to wear them again. “Fuck.”

“I am sorry,” Friday said quietly. “I _have_ identified a likely ally on the ground, who was already in the process of dismantling the project. The Air Force wasn't best pleased when one of their officers reported a clandestine covert operation in their town.”

“Well, don't keep me in suspense, where am I going?”

“Roswell, New Mexico.”

*~*

Alex Manes sat in a folding chair in front of the Airstream until well after midnight. Until 24 hours had passed.

The 'tomorrow' in which Guerin had promised they would talk had passed.

His lovesick stubbornness kept him in place until three in the morning, huddled in his fashionable black leather jacket.

The desert air bit down deep. He should have worn his sheepskin jacket, instead of the leather, but he'd wanted to look good. He was finally ready to stop running. To start... something. Whatever they could salvage from the tragic mess that was their romantic past.

The pain in his leg informed him that he'd abused it long enough and he should definitely take off the prosthetic and lie down. He stood up with a groan, feeling like an old man in a twenty-something body. He regretted not bringing his cane, too. Pride comes before the fall.

Well, not fall, just a graceless and unpoetic shamble to his car.

He rolled down the road at a snail's pace, not ready for the day to end, hoping Guerin would give him a ring, apologising, telling him to turn around so they could catch up.

His phone remained silent.

When he pulled up in front of his hunting cabin, his headlights outlined a robot sat on his porch. It shone in brilliant red and gold. Gryffindor colours, his inner dork said. Iron Man, his inner fan boy corrected.

He pushed the hand break down and stared, frozen, hands on the wheel, car gently swaying from the abrupt halt. Was he hallucinating?

Electric blue eyes glared at him from the darkness even after he blinked. Was he dreaming?

He pulled the handgun from his glove box – what good it would do him against the metal apparition – and trained it on glint of the silhouette's chest. “Identify yourself and state your purpose.”

“Well, I don't often get to introduce myself.” The robot opened up and out stepped a woman, back-lit by ice-blue eyes. “I am Iron Man, or Celeste Stark, if you will, and I need your help taking down some nazis, Captain Manes.”

Manes stood down. His leg was screaming at him. He ignored it. “I don't know what you're talking about.”

“No? HYDRA had a facility that served as a clandestine prison and lab to experiment on illegal aliens. It was rigged to self-destruct with bombs they'd stolen from my company and it went boom yesterday, spectacularly enough to attract my attention and apparently, you were there, already investigating their crimes.”

Manes squinted. His brain must not be working right. This didn't happen in real life. “HYDRA?”

“Project Shepherd, supposedly shut down by SHIELD in 2008 when they were clued into the fact that people from other planets could make useful allies, but really kept running on the down-low by HYDRA.” Stark recited in a voice as dry as the desert.

He considered. His brain wasn't very cooperative, given the fact it was the middle of the night and he was in a lot of pain. All he could think of was sitting down and taking the weight of his fucking bum leg.

He sighed and gestured at the door, holding the gun with his other hand at his side. “Come in. I need to sit down.”


End file.
